Mailam Murugan Temple, Mailam, Tindivanam

The Mailam Murugan temple is located 15 km from Tindivanam, on a small hill on the slopes of which are a number of houses and an institute dedicated to the development of Tamil language and literature.

According to the name, bomma or bomme, derived from brahmana. This was a village donated to Brahmans, as is confirmed by the sthala purana in which Bomayapalaiyam is also named Brahmapuram. The street leading to the mutt is still called agrahara.

It is known from the private diary of Ananda Ranga Pillai, the dubash under Dupleix, that Dupleix visited, in 1744, the head of the mutt and offered him a few yards of cloth and bottles of rose water. In another passage, dating from 1746, Ananda Ranga Pillai mentions that the swami of the mutt cities three pontiffs during this twenty-four year period. Be that as it may, of interest is what Ananda Ranga Pillai has to say regarding the succession to the swami. First, he states that a certain Turaiyar Pachai Kandappaiyur, who was leading an ascetic life in Palani, was installed as head of the mutt. However, four days later, he corrects himself to say that Turaiyur Pachai Kandappaiyur, who had come to install the new pontiff of the mutt, desired to visit Pondicherry before returning to Turaiyur. This shows that Palani had control over the mutt. All the heads of the Bomayapalaiyam mutt are named Sivanana Bala Siddha, which calls clearly to mind that Palani is a hill inhabited by siddha and devoted to Murukan, or more specifically, to Murukan in his form of ascetic and young (bala) god. These two aspects are generally concomitant, probably on the basis of their connotation of innocence and purity.